A Shadow's Return
by Balticbard
Summary: An alternate ending to Rad Amber's two, wonderful stories; "Womanizer," and "Can Somebody Help Me." Years later, Shizuru comes back to claim Natsuki away from Nao.


A Shadow's return  
by Balticbard

disclaimer; somebody else owns mai hime, concept belongs to Rad Amber. I'm just providing a new ending to her alt. ending for "Womanizer" story; "Can Somebody Help Me."

Nao and Natsuki had been together for almost three years now. They had begun their fiery romance on the heels of their junior year of highschool, and it carried them through the last grades of Fuka, then up to graduation. Now the two girls attended the Fuka university together. Their deep love led them to study together but it also led them down dangerous paths that eventually began to dissolve the passion the girls once felt for each other.

Nao and Natsuki had met that evening after their session classes on one of the more reclusive campus parks of the gigantic university complex known as Fuka U. Lately there had been more arguments than before. At least once there were heavy make-up sex sessions after every argument, but now that had slowly slipped away from the two campus girls, now known on the campus as the most breathtaking beauties ever to grace the institution.

To the eye of the rare and casual passerby it looked like two gorgeous women having an argument. To the trained eye of a shadowy figure that secretly stalked them it was more than a casual argument between Nao and Natsuki; it was a raging battle.

"I waited for you outside the chem lab for almost two hours, Nao! Where the hell were you?" Natsuki exclaimed, her almost shrill voice dripping with anger and resentment. "Did you get high again with those thugs of yours again?" Natsuki lunged forwards, her long dark hair whipping around her pretty face as her pale hand took hold of Nao's slim wrist. "Tell me!"

"Don't you DARE call my friends THUGS!" Nao countered in absolute rage as she turned her pale green eyes on Natsuki's slender form. "I don't think you should call names. No. NOT YOU. So what if I shoot up! You're nothing but a damn slut who sleeps ar..."

Nao never had a chance to finish the accusation, because of a hard slap to her cheek from long, graceful digits that once caressed her heated skin in the throes of passion. Nao's head turned sideways from the unexpected blow of Natsuki's hand, making the light, reddish blond slivers of hair that fell on her forehead now get into her eyes.

"How...dare...you..." Natsuki's voice was low, filled with venom, almost a primal growl that dragged out of her throat as she cast an almost evil glare from her jade eyes onto her lover. "How can you blame me for your drug use? I didn't drive you to heroin! You let it rule your life and pushed me out! You're the one who pushed me aways again and again! I felt so alone. So empty. So I...I..." Natsuki's voice was on the verge of cracking, and tears were about to spill from her emerald eyes.

"Oh so I'm supposed to pity you," Nao said harshly, almost in a whisper now as she rolled her eyes to ridicule Natsuki's weak moment. "You always blame me for everything. But you never even asked how I felt everytime I saw you come home from your filthy one night stands! I was keeping count of how many times you cheated on me with who god knows! I just gave up and stopped counting. You've probably slept with half the city already!"

"Heh, yeah sure!" Natsuki replied with evident sarcasm. "Its not like you're an angel compared to me. I'll bet you let anything climb on top of you when you get shot up!"

The shadowy stalker that discreetly watched the bitter war of words of the two beauties, stepped back slightly in her hidden place, expecting Natsuki to explode both verbally and physically since of the two women, she had the more volatile personality. But the expected explosion never came, as the surprised shadow watched and waited, and instead it came not from Natsuki but from Nao.

"DAMN IT! YOU...YOU BITCH!" Nao raised her arm towards Natsuki, making her rolled up sleeve pull back up above her elbow, thus putting in display the numerous needle marks from pasts trips of fantasy to escape her cruel reality. Nao's once dainty hand, now with darkened skin, with wrinkled digits from drug use and needle marks became a sour fist she shook at the woman she once loved more than life itself. "You've never...NEVER even once wondered why I started taking drugs in the first place!"

"Oh there's a reason now?" Again the sarcasm flowed from Natsuki's husky voice. "Then enlighten me please! Because I just don't understand you anymore!"

"Because..." Nao's voice was becoming thinner, higher in tone, her breathing was becoming quicker, her heart was thundering within her young bosom as she felt the anger, hurt and pain rise from within her and go up into her throat. "Because...BECAUSE YOU STILL LOVE HER!"

"Who? What do you mean?" Natsuki was paralyzed with amazement at Nao's sudden loud scream, and if that voice had been blood, then her lovely countenance would have been stained with crimson.

"BECAUSE YOU STILL LOVE SHIZURU!" Nao screamed with all of her heart and soul, releasing all her pain and resentment in her cries. "BECAUSE SHE IS STILL HERE WITH US, BETWEEN US EVERYTIME WE MADE LOVE...EVERYTIME WE KISSED. BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE WITH ME PHYSICALLY YOU STILL CARRY HER IN YOUR HEART!" Nao was crying now, with long trails of wet tears sliding down her smooth cheeks. "And I'm just so tired of it all. I can't bear it anymore. I can't kill her memory inside your heart. She's always there. ALWAYS!"

"Oh...Nao..." Natsuki's voice had become huskier still, as she too cried softly. Natsuki's heart was flooded with deep shame because of the raw truth that Nao's lips had strewn. "I'm so..."

The shadow that silently watched the two, bitter lovers from closeby, now trembled as her own fragile heart was flooded with hope. "Please let it be so. Please. Please Natsuki...please."

"DON'T!" Nao screamed in despair. "DON'T YOU DARE PITY ME! I DON'T WANT OR NEED YOUR DAMN PITY! WHAT I NEED IS TO GET THE HELL AWAY FROM YOU!" Then Nao turned and ran away with all the strength that she had left in her young body. She had to run to find what was left of her sanity. She had to run to be able to live again. She had to run to save herself from the death that would come if she stayed with her beautiful Natsuki. But of course Natsuki was never really hers. Natsuki had never been hers. Natsuki had been borrowed for a little time, and she had fooled herself into thinking that the precious girl would always be with her. But now she had to run to find her heart once more, to grasp reality as she once did. She was running away to find herself, to save her own life.

Natsuki felt desperation rise within her as she watched her lover turn and run. "NO! NAO...DON'T GO...PLEASE!" Natsuki was about to follow after her raging lover, but a voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Natsuki, please don't go!"

The voice had come from behind her, but it sent a cold chill through Natsuki, making her turn almost turn into an icy sculpture. The voice that came to her hears, but penetrated her heart like the sharpest blade like a cutting, cruel memory from a past she tried so hard to bury in the deepest crevices of her heart was of a person she thought despised to the darkest depths of her soul. Natsuki felt her heartbeat speed up so that its sound almost deafened her eardrums. She turned slowly, trying to delay the encounter she feared. But it was inevitable. The shadow was there, now revealed. She had come back. A shadow had returned, and now stood before her expectantly. "Shizuru...?"

Shizuru had stepped out from behind the bushes that once concealed her. Now she stood openly before Natsuki with a pleading, hopeful look upon her pretty face, as her crimson shaded eyes gleamed with a special light. "Natsuki," she said slowly, as she mixed the sound of the syllables of the name precious to her heart with her saliva, and drew out the sounds from her pink lips. "Natsuki, I've come back."

"What?" An incredulous look lit Natsuki's delicate features. "Why are you here, Shizuru? I mean...its been so long...and we..." Suddenly Natsuki remembered the task at hand. "Wait...oh no. Nao. I have to go after her. I'm sorry I can't stay, Shi..."

"NO!" Shizuru thundered as she lunged forward to attach herself to Natsuki's slender arm. "Let her go!"

"I CAN'T! I HAVE TO GO FIND HER! SHE NEEDS ME. SHE'S MY..."

"No Natsuki. She is not your lover," Shizuru said calmly as she slipped her arms around the girl's waist to trap her.

"But..." Natsuki replied weakly as she felt Shizuru vise of flesh clasp her strongly.

"You know that is not so, Natsuki. She is not your lover. She never was. She was just an escape you used to get away from me. I am your lover. I always have been, and always will be. No matter how long you have been gone from my side, you are still my Natsuki."

"I was only your toy, Shizuru," Natsuki said curtly as she managed to escape Shizuru's grasp. "I was just your thing. At least Nao loved me for a while. I just destroyed the only person that ever really loved me."

"Yes, I agree that she really did love you, my Natsuki," Shizuru countered paciently. "But she was and is not the only one who has loved you. I have always loved you. I was stupid in my ways, and I have paid fully for my errors. I have been cut away from your body for almost three years. I have watched you and Nao. I have followed the two of you and waited. I am tired of waiting now. I want you back. I will die if I wait any longer for you. And you are dying already without me."

"You were following us all the time?" Natsuki's amazement oozed from her voice which she willed to remain calm, but was miserably failing. "You're insane if you think I still feel anything but contempt for you."

Shizuru's initial plan had been to slowly edge her way back into Natsuki's soft, warm body. But after craving the girl for years, and filled with so much longing, the lovesick Shizuru lunged at Natsuki once more, this time gathering the girl into her anxious arms. Then Shizuru leaned in and sealed her elegant countenance to Natsuki, and sealed their lips in a desperate kiss which seemed to last an eternity, but was only a brief moment of desire.

"You say that you have destroyed Nao, Natsuki. Then you must let her go so that she can live again. If you have any pity, or even a little bit of love for her, then set her free. But this is the end, my Natsuki. From this day on we are together. And this time it will be forever."

"NO! I hurt Nao. I cheated on her a million times. I can't even accuse you of being a womanizer anymore. I did to Nao what you did to me once...only I did it worse." In shame Natsuki hung her head, so that her gorgeous face became hidden in the inky black, almost bluish depths of her long, thick hair.

"You never cheated on Nao, Natsuki."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Nao was just a substitute for me, Natsuki. It was I you cheated on. It was me who you punished with every temporary lover you took. You were punishing me for the times I flirted with other girls when we were together, and every girl I slept with. But you have had many many more lovers than I ever had, my Natsuki. And I have seen all of your wanderings, and I too have suffered as Nao suffered. I suffered shame and guilt, as well as anger and jealousy. But its all over now, my Natsuki. Mine and mine alone and for always, my dearest love."

"Still no, Shizuru," Natsuki replied with disbelief. "You are still a cheater and will never change. If I return to you then I will suffer from you as I did before, even though now I deserve to be punished..." Sadness now tinged the beautiful girl's voice.

"I am not the childish girl I once was, my Natsuki," Shizuru sighed into the skin of Natsuki's soft, slender neck, making the girl tremble in her firm arms. "I am grown now. I have learned through the pain of seperation from you that a fragile heart is not a toy. My heart has been broken so long since you left with Nao. But now I rise like a phoenix. Now it is time that you are in my arms again."

"Shizuru..." Natsuki said her former lover's name with a hint of trepidation, with a hint of love, with a hint of hope.

"Stay with me, my Natsuki. Do not send me away. Now I am begging. I am not commanding as I once did to you. Now it is I who offers you my fragile heart to hold in your hands. Now it is I who puts my life in your arms. Do not cast me out I beg you. My Natsuki, let me be with you once more." Shizuru's voice was laced with pain, with longing and love, and desire.

"I don't know..."

"I will not judge you, Natsuki. I will not accuse you. Beside me you are blameless of all things. With us the past will be gone. We will begin again."

"How can that be done, Shizuru?"

Shizuru's smile was almost flirtateous, almost mischievous as she stepped back from her beloved and held out a pale hand to her. "Hello. My name is Shizuru Fujino. I am most pleased to meet you."

Natsuki chuckled, as a smile settled on her cherry red lips. She took the offered, gentle hand in her own and shook it carefully with her own, "My name is Natsuki Kuga. Please call me Natsuki."

"Just call me Shizuru," came the giddy reply of a smiling, now slightly bashful blond girl.

"I will."

"Natsuki," came the blond girl's soft reply as she took her girl into her arms once more, "We will dance life's dance together, yes, my Natsuki?"

"Yes," came the simple reply that gladdened the tired heart of what was once a sad shadow.

"Natsuki...my love." Shizuru stepped close and embraced her love. Pink lips met red, full ones in a deep kiss that smothered out time and doubt forever.

Wherever there is a Natsuki, there will always be a Shizuru.

fin


End file.
